Interview with Royy (Graven Image)
Hail Royy, you are very welcome to my small blog Archangel’s Lantern. How and when did you enjoy the underground movement back in the day? What were your very first releases you bought? Which band did you see live for the first time?
~ Hi Georgius, nice to talk with you here. Well from family and environment I got infected with hardrock and metal in my childhood. I was so young that I didn’t even knew about genres yet, all I knew was that I liked it. My first releases were early vinyl releases from Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Motörhead, which still are my favourite bands. The first bands of choice I’ve seen live were Iron Maiden, Obituary, Metallica, Sepultura. The first two have made a lasting impression.
You are a very talented one, as in addition to growling and playing guitar, you also played bass and drums. Which musicians inspired you initially and what are your favourite ones nowadays?
~ That’s nice of you to say, thank you. I’ve started as a drummer in 1991 and never wanted to be anything else than that. I still feel and think like a drummer, even though I’m mostly a vocalist, guitarist and bassist the last three decades. I have always liked multi-instrumentalists such as Chuck from Death and Quorthon from Bathory. The idea of not being pinned down to just one singular instrument always meant a great deal to me. My favourites nowadays are talented musicians who are down to earth and do not hide behind looks or use sexuality to gain more likes or attention. It should be about the music again.
I think, it was happened in Summer when Serge, the big boss of the facebook page called Dutch Brutal/Death/ Metal/Thrash recommended to me listen to Graven Image and I must say I liked a lot of your awesome music. Tell the readers the story of the Graven Image from the beginnings, please.
~ Big thanks and shout out to Serge, again. I was one of the founding members of the band Raging Death from Doesburg, formed in 1991. We were a death-metal band at first but evolved into Autumnal Reaper, moving into black-metal in 1993, with me still being the drummer but adding vocals as we went. In that band I’ve transformed into the vocalist/bassist. Somewhere around the millennium, while still in Autumnal Reaper all these years, I just wanted to play drums again, so I re-forged Raging Death with Autumnal Reaper’s roadie Waltr. Both of us had played together in a project band in the early 2000’s, and kept in touch. The idea was that the drums would have the leading position. To avoid being connected to Autumnal Reaper in a straight line, we decided to leave the name Raging Death behind and choose something new. Harro and Arno, friends of ours, joined us while we decided on the name Graven Image and completed the 2003 classic line-up. With myself as drummer we’ve released one demo with Waltr as the vocalist and guitarist, Arno on bass, and our only release with guitarist Harro, the “Death Metal Bastards” demo. We started doing a lot of shows, and things went really fast. Around 2006 I got in contact with Kampfar’s drummer Ask. He was moving to The Netherlands and needed a band to play in to stay in shape while still being in his Norwegian band Kampfar. It came at the same moment Graven Image was looking for a more death-metal stylish vocalist. We’ve searched for a suitable replacement for Waltr as vocalist, so he could focus on guitar, but we couldn’t find a suitable death-metal vocalist for our band. Eventually the obvious answer was Ask taking over my drum position because he was a better drummer than me, and myself taking over the vocal position because I sounded more death-metal than Waltr, and Waltr focussing on rhythm guitars because that was what he really enjoyed doing. We’ve gained a member and did a chair dance in active roles. Knowing at some point Ask had to return to Norway and leave us, we’ve found Tom, or Tom found us, as he was a Graven Image fan and followed us already. Adding Tom to our line-up as drummer was one the best decisions we’ve could have ever made. Our friend and guitarist Dave has played an impressive 9 years with us, he was previously with me in Autumnal Reaper as well. Nowadays Mike and Bauke are the lead guitarists in Graven Image, leaving me as the third guitarist, a position to be quite normal within GI for many years. My friend Kenny is the one responsible for doing all the Graven Image studio productions. Him and me work together a lot, so his role within Graven Image should not be underestimated, and he is therefore considered a full member of the band as well.
Who is the main song and lyric-writer in the horde? What should we know about your lyrics?
~ The older songs it’s mostly Waltr and me writing the music and then everybody helps with the arrangements, with me doing the lyrics. On the newer songs I wrote everything. What you should know? We have two types of lyrical themes; World War II and the occult. The “Return Fire” CD was WWII themed; “Deus Bastardus” was occult themed. The first following release will be WWII again, yet the future material after that will be more cultural grounded themed.
~ Don’t forget “Beast” from December 2023, that’s the one reigniting everything, with Jon Rubin from Malevolent Creation and Monstrosity as guest lead-guitarist. We never wanted to release singles actually, we just want to release actual physical hardcopies. On the other hand, we’re aware of being a band in current times, so sometimes you have to do something you’re not entirely comfortable with. We intent to compile the singles and make it a physical release anyway, as an EP/CD. Verzetsstormer was the first time we did a video without using black and white World War two footage, it turned out our best viewed video. Return Fire was fully remixed and remastered by Kenny and me from the original 2011 mastertapes. There was old studio footage never used, filmed by me back in 2011, finally put together in 2025 by a close friend who wants to be named online only as “AM”, who has also directed the videos for “Beast” and “Verzetsstormer”. My friend AM is enthusiastic about working along with us in the near future as well.
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